I know this sounds insane but some Dustin Henderson x reader angst would be really good
like maybe his girlfriend and Steve’s sister dies during the Crawl and Hopper has to come back with her dead body and Dustin can’t look at Steve at all anymore because not only does he see his dead best friend but now his dead girlfriend too
bro I started tearing up writing this imagine how I’ll feel reading a fic like this 😭
you obviously don’t have to, feel free to ignore this request too
I promise
Harrington!reader x Dustin Henderson
Warnings! Angst, death, grief. A/n IM SO MAD I HAD AN AMAZING THING WRITTEN FOR THIS BUT IT ALL GOT DELETED so this isn’t rlly that good💔
It was just meant to be a crawl, hopefully a successful one at that, this time it wasn’t successful not at all.
Y/n was going to be joining hopper in the upside down the reasoning for this was because After the military locked down the MAC-Z, they realize something important, Radio signals inside the Upside Down degrade fast and unpredictably.
Dustin can reach Hopper — but only barely — and certain sectors are total dead zones.
They need someone inside the Upside Down whose entire job is to physically extend and stabilize communication.
Y/n was given this job because She’s smaller, faster, quieter than Hopper, and she can slip into tighter sectors that hopper physically can’t fit through.
Dustin steps closer, carefully clipping the radio to the front of your jacket. His fingers linger for a second longer than they need to, adjusting the strap like he’s afraid that if he lets go, something might slip away.
“You stay behind Hopper,” he says quietly, eyes flicking up to yours. “Don’t try to be brave. Just… listen to him. Promise me.”
You give him a small smile, even though your stomach is twisting.
“I’m related to Steve” you say lightly. “It’s genetic. Bravery, bad decisions — all of it.”
Steve lets out a low groan from beside you.
“Jesus y/n. That’s really not reassuring, you know that, right?”
You laugh softly, then turn back to Dustin. Your hand slips into his, squeezing gently.
“I’ll be careful,” you promise. “I’ll come back. I always do.”
He swallows, nodding, even though his grip tightens around your fingers.
You lean forward and press a quick kiss to his cheek — warm, familiar, grounding.
“For luck,” you whisper.
And for just a second, everything feels like it might be okay.
“Alright,” Hopper said sharply, already moving toward the equipment crates. He clapped his hands once, the sound echoing through the room. “We’re rolling. Window’s open, and we don’t have much time.”
Everyone shifted at once — radios being clipped on, weapons checked, flashlights snapping to life. The air felt heavier, tighter, like the room itself was holding its breath.
Hopper slung his gear over his shoulder and glanced back at the group.
“No hesitation. We go in, we get what we need, and we get out. Stay on your channels and don’t wander.”
As you’re about to go and follow hopper Steve walks up to you his hands settle on your shoulders, steady and warm.
“Hey. If anything feels off — even a little — you turn around and you get out. I don’t care what’s happening behind you,” he says quietly. “You hear me? You come back in one piece.”
“Yes I promise, I’ll come back” you say with a reassuring grin
You fall into step behind Hopper.
Truthfully, you’re terrified — even though everyone had agreed to this plan, and you agreed too, convinced you could handle it.
Now that it’s really happening, you’re not so sure you’re going to come back in one piece.
But death didn’t cross your mind once.
The air changes the second you step through.
It’s colder — not just cold, but damp, like the inside of a cave that hasn’t seen sunlight in years. Every breath tastes metallic, sharp against your tongue. The floor squelches faintly under your boots, a wet, rubbery sound that makes your stomach twist.
You tighten your grip on your flashlight.
“Dustin, I’m in,” you murmur.
Your voice echoes strangely, stretched and warped by the empty space around you.
“Copy,” Dustin’s voice comes through your headset, fuzzy but steady. “Your signal’s holding strong.”
The beam of your light cuts through thick strands of vine-like growth clinging to the walls. They twitch slightly as you brush past, like they can feel you.
You swallow.
“Everything here is… alive. I really hate that.”
Dustin lets out a quiet breathy laugh.
“Yeah. Pretty sure that means you’re doing it right.”
Hopper moves behind you, quiet and solid, his boots careful on the slick ground.
“Slow and steady,” he mutters. “We don’t rush this.”
You nod, even though he can’t see it.
“Signal check,” you whisper.
“Still clean,” Dustin replies. “You’re doing great.”
Your chest tightens — just a little. You take another step forward.
And somewhere deeper in the tunnel, something shifts.
glance back at Hopper. His silhouette is steady, like a rock, but you can feel the weight of the moment pressing down on both of you. Every step makes the floor groan. Every twitch of the walls makes your nerves fire.
“Almost at the junction,” Hopper whispers. His voice is low, cautious. “We’re slow here.”
You nod and crouch slightly, flashlight sweeping over the ground. The wet, sticky substance coating the floor glistens in your beam. It smells… wrong. Something organic, something alive.
“Dustin… it’s worse than I thought,” you whisper into the radio, your voice shaking just a little.
“You’re fine. You’re okay,” Dustin says, but you hear the edge in his tone, the tiny tremor he’s trying to hide.
You take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. You brush past a tendril of the vine-like growth, and it twitches at your touch. Your stomach flips.
Hopper kneels briefly, examining the next section of tunnel. “This is narrow. I can’t get through there. You’re gonna have to go first.”
Your heart stutters. You glance at him. “Me? Alone?”
He nods once, his face tight. “I’ll follow. Slow, careful. You’re small enough to check the next junction and make sure it’s safe.”
Your hands tighten around the radio. “Okay… okay. I can do this.” It sounds more like your saying it to yourself.
Dustin’s voice comes through, soft but firm. “You got this. Just… come back to me, okay?”
You feel the warmth in your chest despite the icy air surrounding you. “I will,” you whisper, almost more to yourself than to him.
Another step forward.
And the walls groan. Something shifts ahead — low, wet, deliberate. You freeze, flashlight shaking slightly.
“Hopper… something’s moving,” you whisper.
He doesn’t answer right away. You hear his slow, careful breath.
“Stay calm,” he finally says. “Keep moving… slowly. Don’t let it know you’re scared.”
You swallow hard, the dread pressing down harder with every step. You can hear the faintest scraping in the distance — something alive, watching, waiting.
And in that moment, you realize how fragile everything really is. One wrong step. One mistake. And you might not make it back at all.
You reach the junction with a shaky breath.
The tunnel splits in two — one path slants upward, the other disappears into a tight, suffocating drop. Thick vines web the corners like veins, pulsing faintly beneath your fingers as you secure the repeater pack into place.
“Dustin,” you whisper, “I’m at the junction.”
Static pops — then his voice comes through clearer than it has all night.
“Whoa — yeah, I see you. Your signal just spiked. You did it.”
Your chest loosens.
A quiet, relieved laugh slips out.
“Okay… good.”
Hopper nods behind you. “That’s our anchor,” he murmurs. “Nice work.”
You tighten the last strap and glance down at the blinking green light. “It’s holding,” you say softly. “Signal’s strong.”
“You’re doing amazing,” Dustin says. “Seriously.” For one tiny second… it feels like everything’s going to be okay.
Then—
A wet breath exhales somewhere behind you.
Not Hopper.
Your spine goes cold.
The vines beside your hand curl inward, twitching slowly.
“…Dustin?” you whisper.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think we’re alone.”
Hopper straightens.
“Back up,” he says quietly. “Slow.”
You turn—
And the Demogorgon steps into your flashlight beam.
Tall.
Split-faced.
Breathing.
Your scream punches through the radio.
“RUN!” Hopper roars.
You stumble back, but the tunnel is too tight, your boots slipping on the wet floor—
The Demogorgon lunges.
Its claws rake across your side.
You cry out, pain exploding through your ribs as you slam into the wall.
“DUSTIN—” you scream into the mic.
Hopper fires — the gunshot echoes violently through the tunnel —
But the creature is already on you.
Your radio crackles with static as you’re dragged out of sight.
Your scream cuts off.
And then—
Nothing.
Dead air.
The world doesn’t go black right away.
That’s the strange part.
It goes… quiet.
Your body feels heavy, like you’re sinking into warm water. The tunnel blurs, the sounds stretching thin and far away — Hopper shouting, Dustin yelling your name through the radio, the creature’s footsteps — all of it melting into a low, distant hum.
Your fingers are still curled around the mic.
You can hear your own breathing, but it sounds like it belongs to someone else.
Slow.
Shaky.
Fading.
And then your mind starts to wander.
You’re twelve again
You’re sitting on the hood of Steve’s car, legs swinging, stealing fries from his bag while he pretends not to notice. You remember the sun on your face. The way the sky looked endless and blue.
You’re laughing.
It feels warm there.
You’re at the arcade. Dustin is holding the joystick, tongue poking out, seriously concentrating. You’re leaning on him, laughing at the way he’s yelling at the game, totally immersed.
“You’re cheating!” you shout.
“I am not!” he argues, grin wide. “You just suck!” You punch his shoulder lightly, and he catches your hand, holding it just a second too long. You laugh, heart warm.
You’re at the mall with Max and Eleven, racing from store to store. Max drags you along, laughing, while Eleven grabs your hand to keep up.
At the food court, you share fries and sodas, trying not to laugh when Eleven struggles with her straw.
You’re sitting close, shoulders brushing. Dustin keeps glancing at you, suddenly quiet.
“What?” you tease.
He shrugs, cheeks pink — and then he leans in, clumsy and nervous. Your noses bump, you both laugh softly… and then his lips meet yours, warm and gentle.
Your heart races.
When he pulls back, smiling shyly, you squeeze his hand.
His gaze softens. “You know I love you,” he says gently. “Right?”
You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “I know,” you whisper, “and I love you more than you think.”
Your chest tightens gently. Not pain — just pressure.
Like someone is laying a blanket over you. You think of the last thing you said to him.
I’ll be back. I promise.
Your lips part, but no sound comes out. Inside your mind, you whisper it anyway.
I’m still here.
The memories blur at the edges, colors softening, sounds fading into quiet echoes. It feels like drifting toward sleep — heavy, warm, peaceful.
The last thing you see isn’t the tunnel. It’s Dustin’s smile. And the feeling of his hand in yours.
Then everything goes still.
And quiet. And safe.
Hopper emerges from the Upside Down, carrying her in his arms.
The tunnel air outside smells clean, normal, almost unreal compared to the horrors inside. But her body… her body is limp. Pale. Silent.
Hopper kneels carefully on the ground, setting her down gently. He doesn’t let anyone else touch her. He just sits there, breathing hard, staring at her face.
Dustin bursts forward, radio still in hand, eyes wide. “Y/N?” His voice cracks. “No… no, no, no, no—”
He drops to his knees beside her, shaking her shoulder lightly, searching desperately for any sign of life.
“Dustin,” Hopper says softly, hand on his shoulder. “She… she’s gone.”
Dustin’s hands fall limply to his sides. He can’t look at Hopper. Every thought, every scream he heard in the radio, every memory of her alive and laughing — it all hits him at once.
Steve steps forward slowly, face pale, eyes fixed on her. Dustin freezes mid-breath. He cannot look at Steve. Because Steve is her face, her eyes, her smile — every little thing about her that Dustin loved.
“No,” Dustin whispers, voice breaking. “She… she was just talking to me. She… I heard her… she was fine…”
Hopper kneels beside him, placing a steady hand on his back. “I did what I could-”
Dustin shakes his head violently. “No. No. She’s—she’s here, and I can hear her in my head. She said she’d come back… she promised!”
Steve swallows hard, stepping back. He wants to say something, anything to comfort Dustin, but he knows he can’t. His face, his presence, it’s too much. Every time Dustin looks at him, all he sees is her.
Dustin curls into himself beside her, rocking slightly, whispering all the things he wishes he could tell her one last time:
“I love you. I love you. Come back. Please… come back…”
Hopper sits beside him quietly, silent and solid. He doesn’t try to fix it, doesn’t try to explain it. He just lets him feel the grief, because there’s nothing else he can do.
And there she lies. Lifeless. The girl who ran through the tunnels, who laughed with Max, who raced bikes with Dustin, who stole his cap, who made the world light up with just her presence.
And now she’s gone.
Dustin refuses to look at Steve. Every step, every word from him reminds him of her, and he can’t bear it. So he stays there, pressed close to her, letting Hopper hold him up as the reality sets in.
The world feels too loud, too bright, and too empty — because the one person who made it feel safe is no longer in it.
Steve grieves quietly
The house feels wrong without you.
Steve notices it first in the smallest things — your shoes still by the door, your jacket draped over the back of a chair, the empty space beside him on the couch where you always curled up with your feet tucked under you. He reaches for his keys out of habit, ready to drive you somewhere, ready to complain about your music — and then remembers there’s no one left to argue with.
He doesn’t say your name out loud.
He can’t.
He cleans instead. Wipes counters that are already clean. Folds blankets that still smell faintly like your shampoo. It’s the only way he knows how to keep from falling apart.
Sometimes he catches himself smiling at something dumb — a commercial you would’ve laughed at, a joke you would’ve made — and it knocks the breath out of him all over again.
He was supposed to keep you safe.
Dustin grieves louder.
At night, he keeps your radio on his nightstand, fingers tracing the worn buttons like muscle memory. He presses it to his chest, listening to static like it might turn into your voice if he just waits long enough.
He talks to you when no one’s listening — about school, about stupid arcade games, about everything he never got to tell you.
Some nights he cries so hard his throat aches.
“You were still talking to me,” he whispers into the dark. “You were still alive…”
He can’t bring himself to look at Steve without his chest tightening — because Steve’s eyes, his smile, the way he moves — it all looks too much like you.
And neither of them knows how to be okay in a world that kept going without you.
